Forever Is An Awfully Long Time
by forgotten-magick
Summary: Angela Darling is Wendy's great-great-great-granddaughter. When Andy gets sick, can Peter help by taking her away? Please R&R. (Rating for a dark sort of plot, maybe a few swear words.)
1. Bad News and Childhood Dreams

"I'm sorry Mr. Darling, there really isn't anything we can do. We can put her on chemotherapy, we can do multiple operations, we can move her permanently into the hospital, we can even get a homeopathic doctor to fill her up with herbs, but there really isn't much hope."

"So Angela is going to die. I need to go tell my daughter that for all the machines, all the research, all the time we've spent in this bloody hospital being told nothing is wrong, you can't help? For the last month I've dragged my daughter in here to be checked out, how could you miss a cancerous tumor on her brain?"

"Mr. Darling, we'll do everything we can—"

"Well there's a damn relief! Maybe if you'd done all you could before now, my daughter would still have a chance of seeing eighteen!"

The door of the exam room slammed open and my father stormed out. His green eyes were shooting sparks and his face was taunt with anger. The doctor, a pale, wiry man with large, sunken eyes, hurried out after my father looking windswept and harassed.

"Come on, Andy," Dad said, taking my hand. "Let's go. There's no more reason to stay here."

"Mr. Darling–" the doctor said, and edge of fear and anxiety on his voice.

"Doctor Mitchell," my father said, raising his voice as he continued down the hall. "I don't want to hear anymore of your excuses. You will hear from me within the coming week to discuss how I will move forward. Good day, Doctor."

My father and I didn't speak as we walked down to the car. I opened my mouthy many times to say something, anything, to scream, to ask a question, just to _do_ something. I couldn't make a sound. "_So Angela is going to die,_" kept running through my head.

It was strange, hearing the name "Angela." Yes, it was my given name, but I'd never gone by it, not since I was five years old. My little sister, Wendalen, had just started to speak and it was easier for her to say "Andy" instead of "Angie" and the name had stuck. I hated the name Angela. Whenever someone used that name, it meant bad news or punishment.The thought of my name's connotation made a lump swell in my throat.

As we stepped out of the building into the cool, cloudy evening, Dad stopped. He hugged me tightly, crushing me to him. I felt him shaking.

"I'm sorry, Andy," he whispered. "I'm sorry there's nothing to be done."

I wanted to tell him that it was all right, that I didn't blame him. I knew it wasn't my father's fault that I had cancer, but it wasn't okay. This wasn't even close to okay.

"It's not your fault, Daddy," I whispered. "Sometimes bad things just happen.

That night, I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. I wasn't sure how I felt exactly. I was a little scared, a little angry, a little shocked, and a little disbelieving. I hadn't really faced it yet. A tumor on my brain, how could you just wake up one day with a tumor? Something in my head was slowly killing me. It was unreal. It was like some sort of weird dream.

Suddenly, I gasped and clutched my head as pain ripped through my brain. I gritted my teeth to keep from yelling. My body curled, all my muscles clenching with the agony. Oh it hurt, it hurt so terribly.

As the pain receded, I dropped back into my pillows. I remembered my Granny Maggie's favorite saying. _"When you're in pain, think of something else and you'll be better again._

Thinking of Granny Maggie made me smile. She'd died a year ago, just four days after my fifteenth birthday. She'd been such a funny old woman. My parents had left me with her during the day before I'd started school and I'd spent afternoons with her whenever I could. She'd tell me the best stories. Granny Maggie was the person who made me want to be a writer. She had never scolded me or told me to grow up or act my age. In fact, she had a brass plaque under her doorbell with the inscription: _"Through these doors, time will stop. No growing, oh no, you shall not. Let time move on around out here. Come in and be young, my darling dear." _When Granny died, I took the plaque and hung it on my bedroom door. She had always called me her "Darling dear." Granny Maggie was my mother's mother; she was also the one carrying the Darling name. Wendy Darling, my great-great-great-grandmother had asked that the name Darling be passed on no matter whether the Darling family member was a girl or boy. Granny Maggie told me that Wendy wanted it that way so that Peter Pan could always find our family. Granny said that she'd moved out of this house and let us move in for the same reason, so Peter Pan could find the youngest female child in the Darling family if he came to take her to Neverland for spring-cleaning.

I smiled in the darkness. Peter Pan. Nothing reminded me of Granny Maggie like Peter Pan stories. I loved hearing them; I couldn't sleep without hearing a story about Peter and the Lost Boys. They were more real to me than anything else.

I climbed out of bed and walked to the window. This window was my favorite thing to look at. The bright stained glass pictures of pirate ships and fairies always calmed me down. I opened the window and stepped out onto the small ledge. The cool night breeze coiled around me and I breathed deep. I remembered a small prayer Granny Maggie had made me memorize. She told me that if I said it, Tinkerbell would tell Peter that he was needed and he'd come to me.

_Silliness_, I thought. I turned away from the brilliant blanket of stars and started back into the nursery. I was too old for that sort of thing anyway.

I imagined Granny's face if she'd have ever heard me say something like that. What could it hurt? It was just a simple thing to say and it's not like anyone would ever know.

I turned back to the sky and stepped completely out onto the ledge. I said the lines in my head a few times to be sure that I had them down. I took a deep breath and said:

"Peter Pan, Peter Pan, come to me now.

You never grow up, you never grow old.

Teach me to ride the wind's back and away we go.

Peter Pan, Peter Pan, come to me now."

Nothing happened. I stood there with my arms out and my eyes closed. Part of me was really hoping that something would happen, but the grown up part of me snickered.

_Don't be so stupid_, I thought, furious with myself. _Granny Maggie's stories are just getting to you because you're stressed out. There's no such thing as Peter Pan or fairies or Neverland. None of it means anything._

I dropped my arms and glared around at the night, wondering if anyone had seen. Fairies indeed, calling Peter Pan, ha, childish nonsense.

"There's no such thing-" but I stopped. I had fully intended to say "There's no such thing as fairies," but I couldn't say it. Part of me still wondered if it was true.

I smiled ruefully at myself and looked up. I could see the two stars Granny Maggie had always pointed out to me. "You did quite the dance on me, Granny," I whispered, my heart giving a sad little dip in my chest. "I can't even say the things I want to anymore."

I went back into my room and made to close the window. I didn't close it though; I decided to leave it open, what was the harm.

"Goodnight Peter," I said as I clambered back into bed and flicked off the light. "Maybe you will come. Round about time for spring cleaning, isn't it?"

I closed my eyes and instantly drifted off. So I never saw the little sparkling light that flew through my room, I never saw the shadow tiptoeing across the wall, I never heard Nana the Sixth barking. Nor did I see the boy fly onto the windowsill. I didn't know that he came and stood by my bed or hear him say, "You'll be perfect. I'll be back for you soon."

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Well, here's the first chapter. Please R&R whether you like it or not. This is only my second fic, so give me the benefit of the doubt. I'll give you reviews if I get one from you.

PS- please check out my _Harry Potter_ fic as well.


	2. The Coming of Peter Pan

I sat in the hospital hallway dragging my toes in a figure eight. I'd been out here for about half an hour while the doctor and my parents talked about my complete lack of progress and response to medicine.

The doctor always feared that my father would fly into a bloody rage when he was give my treatment reports, but my father didn't get angry like that anymore. It was actually quite strange he was acting different lately. He'd taken to talking to me about Granny Maggie and her stories. It was as if he was trying to give me a message, like he was trying to make me believe them. He had liked hearing the stories Granny had told me before I went to sleep, but when my mother told him that she hated them, he'd stopped coming in and listening.

That night, Dad sat on my bed and talked about a trip he was planning, a trip for all of us to Hawaii, the island state of America. I had always wanted to go there (because I imagined it covered with jungles and ravines like Neverland, though I'd never told anyone) but it made me sad in some small way that he was planning it now.

"Dad," I said. "Why does Mum hate Granny's stories?"

Dad toyed with a hole in my brightly patterned quilt before answering. "Your mum was raised on the same stories, Andy. She never gave up hope that Peter might turn up when she was a child. When she grew old enough to realize that Peter wasn't coming, she got angry. She hated Granny for telling her those stories that would never come true. I don't know if she ever truly got over the disappointment it caused."

I curled a tendril of hair around my finger and asked, "If she hated them, why'd she let Granny tell them to me?"

"Mum and I never really had a say," he sighed. "We knew that we'd have no choice but to leave you with her, so even if we forbade her to tell you the stories, she'd have done it anyway. Besides, I wanted you to hear them. I think that you'd be a different person if you'd never believed in him."

I leaned back on my pillows and stared up at the clouds painted on my bedroom ceiling. I imagined for a moment a gangly young boy flying round the chandelier and sprinkling pixie dust on Dad and I. I smiled quietly and took my dad's hand.

"Andy," he said quietly. "I know your mum's been distant these past few weeks, please don't be angry with her for it. She doesn't know how to deal with . . . with what's going to happen. Just try to be understanding."

He squeezed my hand and smiled softly. I smiled back and whispered, "I will."

"G'night, Love," Dad said, kissing me on the forehead. "See you in the morning."

"'Night Dad," I said, snuggling down into my blankets and closing my eyes.

Dad flipped the lights off and shut the door quietly behind him. After I heard his footsteps go into his room and the door shut, I crawled out of bed and walked to the window.

It had become my nightly ritual to open the window and say the little rhyme. I never closed the window afterwards, but strangely enough I always woke up with it closed. I knew my dad hadn't closed it; he never woke up during the night. My mother never did either.

Tonight, I felt like something was different, like there was something esoteric in the wind's song. I opened my mouth to speak, but I realized that something was coming towards me.

At first I thought it was some sort of extra-concentrated lightning bug, but as it got closer and bigger I realized that it had to be something else. "Alien!" I squeaked and hurried over to my bed. I pulled back the blankets, but on further thought, I dropped to the floor and scuttled under the bed.

The light rocketed into the room and shot around, pausing every once in a while.

"Tink," came a boy's voice. "The coast clear?"

Tinkle, tinkle, ching-

"Is she in there?"

Tink, ching, ping, peep-

"What d'you mean, you aren't sure?"

Sparkle, wink-

"Don't take that tone with me. I'm coming in."

I looked at the window and fought back a gasp as two bare, dirty feet dropped down onto the ledge. As the feet moved forward, my eyes traveled up to the trousers made of leaves, the lean torso and the vines and acorns that made up his clothes. My eyes rested on his face as his eyes darted around my room. His face was slightly angular, like a fairy. His eyes were a deep green, just like mine were. He was beautiful and I knew instantly who he was.

"Peter," I breathed to myself. I rubbed my eyes hard and wondered if I was dreaming.

"Hello."

I let out a small shriek and jumped. I smacked my head on the bottom of my bed and slammed back to the floor, biting my tongue in the process. "Bloody hell," I swore between clinched teeth.

Someone chuckled. "Sorry 'bout that. I didn't mean to frighten you."

I clambered out from under the bed and looked at the boy. He was as tall as I was and about as old, no more that 14 or so.

"Odd," I said, stepping sideways. He followed my movements. We moved like dogs waiting to attack. "I thought you'd be younger."

He shrugged, never taking his eyes from mine. "I thought I ought to be older for you. Didn't really make much of a difference."

"Why are you here?"

"You called for me."

I started. "I what?"

"The rhyme, the second kiss I gave Wendy. You keep saying it."

I stared at him. "No," I said, shaking my head. "There is no way you can really be here. Wendy made you up, and Granny continued with the story. It's just . . . just not . . . possible."

He cocked his head. "You don't believe in me anymore?"

"I'm fourteen," I said, forcing my voice to stay calm, but even I could hear the hysteria lurking beneath the surface. "I don't, I don't believe in stuff like this anymore."

"You're in trouble," Peter stated. "You needed me, so I came." He considered me for a moment. "You shouldn't leave your window open when it's so cold. It'll just make you sicker."

"More sick," I corrected him absently.

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

He stepped toward me. "I've come to take you to Neverland. You need to come with me."

Everything washed over me suddenly. My last glimpse of Granny Maggie, frail and white on the hospital bed, the tears in my father's eyes after he found out how sick I was, my mother turning away from me whenever I came near her, the pain I felt whenever I relaxed, whenever I wasn't paying attention, whenever I let my guard down. What was I staying here for?

"Alright," I said. "I'll go with you."

He came even closer. I could feel the warmth from his body and smell him: the smell of damp earth and green, the smell of summer and fun and laughter. "This time will be different," he said. "It won't be like the other ones."

Flashes of my friends walking away, not inviting me places, the doddery old neighbor crying when she saw me, the minister from my mother's church trying to touch my forehead before I ran away to the sanctuary of my room blasted through my mind.

"I don't care."

"Then let's go."

He held out his hand and in a moment, we'd left the nursery behind.

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Okay, here it be. Please review, sorry it took so long. Enjoy!

Please R&R. (Pretty please, please, please, please, please, please with sugar an' peanuts an' walnuts an' cherries an' Cheetos an' Mountain Dew Leaves reviews for this.)

(See above for pleases and read my HP fic too.)


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